


[FIC] Death's Pupil

by Thanzags (arka_r)



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Long-Haired Thanatos (Hades Video Game), M/M, Mentor Thanatos (Hades Video Game), Mentor/Protégé, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:53:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arka_r/pseuds/Thanzags
Summary: “I have noticed your untarnished record of good work to the House. Your servitude is an important aspect that keeps the House running”, Lord Hades said. “For that, I am giving you a promotion.”“My Lord is too kind”, Thanatos replied humbly. “However, I am perfectly content with my position as it is.”“I am not offering, I am giving you an order”, Lord Hades cut sharply. “To add to your usual duties to carry the dead, I hereby entrust you to mentor my son and heir, to teach him everything there is about the Underworld and its inner workings. This mentorship will last until I deem it enough.”---Death has a new pupil, and he's sweet as one can be.Sporadic update but will try to stick to weekly posting ❤
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 73





	[FIC] Death's Pupil

**Author's Note:**

> okay so... don't kill me, but i have this idea and it refuses to leave me the hell alone. blame thanzag server for this.

It was a rare occasion that Thanatos was summoned to the Great Hall. The jeweled columns gleamed in the low light and loomed above him, giving an ominous feeling as he stepped forward. Shades milled about the hall, waiting for their turn to have an audience with Lord Hades. Thanatos paid them no mind.

Lord Hades’ desk towered at the end of the Great Hall, but he was not sitting on the throne as he usually did. No, instead the King of the Underworld stood in front of his desk, two non-shade figures standing to his left and right. They wore matching flaming laurels too. Thanatos immediately recognized them as Queen Persephone and Prince Zagreus.

“Hail, King and Queen of the Underworld. Hail, Prince of the Underworld”, Thanatos bowed, showing his respect to the royal family.

“Rise, Thanatos”, Lord Hades’ voice boomed, and Thanatos straightened up. “I summoned you here today to inform you of an important matter.”

Straight to the point, Thanatos thought, as it always had been with Lord Hades. Thanatos kept his silence, waiting for the God of the Dead to finish.

“I have noticed your untarnished record of good work to the House. Your servitude is an important aspect that keeps the House running”, Lord Hades said. “For that, I am giving you a promotion.”

“My Lord is too kind”, Thanatos replied humbly. “However, I am perfectly content with my position as it is.”

“I am not offering, I am giving you an order”, Lord Hades cut sharply. “To add to your usual duties to carry the dead, I hereby entrust you to mentor my son and heir, to teach him everything there is about the Underworld and its inner workings. This mentorship will last until I deem it enough.”

Thanatos’ eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. Mentoring the Prince? He was extremely busy as he was with his duties and responsibilities. Why would Lord Hades even think that he could do something as time-consuming as a mentorship?

“My Lord?” Thanatos asked, as he still tried to process Lord Hades’ words. “I am not sure I follow. Am I to teach Prince Zagreus about the reaping of souls?” 

_ Does he even have the power to reap souls? _ He did not ask.

“The reaping of souls, and more”, Lord Hades answered. “My son, ah… He has not received his godhood yet, young as he is. I believe that he will receive the dominion of the Underworld, just as I did. But the extension of his powers is unknown as of now.”

Thanatos’ eyes shifted to where the Prince stood. The Prince’s expression was neutral, but there was a certain… shyness to his handsome features. His eyes, blood red on the right side and verdant green on the left side, met with Thanatos’ golden ones. Only now Thanatos noticed just how young the Prince was.

The presence of Lord Hades’s son was a common knowledge in the Underworld. However, the Prince was kept hidden away in the Royal Wing of the House. Many servants of the house knew not to pry, Thanatos including. Still, that didn’t stop them from spreading gossips — idle rumors, that even Thanatos knew some about. Rumors had it that the Prince was born sickly, and both Lord Hades and Lady Persephone sheltered him for his own protection.

And now, Lord Hades ordered him to mentor his only son and heir?

“I am incredibly grateful of the opportunity, My Lord”, Thanatos bowed once again. “I will teach Prince Zagreus everything there is about the Underworld. This, I swear. I will not disappoint you.”

“See that you don’t”, Lord Hades returned. “You may start tomorrow. You are dismissed.”

“Very well, My Lord.”

With that, Thanatos shifted away from the depth of the Underworld.

* * *

Thanatos appeared in the House the day after. After filing his reports to the administrative chamber and checking in with his mother, he headed to the Great Hall. Lord Hades was doing paperworks on his desk as usual, and he did not even glance at Thanatos. His son, the Prince, however, turned his head to Thanatos from where he stood next to his Lord Father’s desk.

The Prince wore a thick blood-red chlamys over his chiton, held by a skull-shaped pin that bore the sigil of the dead. It seemed that he had suitably dressed for their travel to the surface world. Like the day before, the Prince carried the same shyness, like he was unsure about what he was supposed to do, but he grinned when his eyes met Thanatos’. Thanatos bowed to the Prince, before straightening himself up. 

“Hail, Prince”, he greeted.

“Please, call me Zagreus”, the Prince returned. “You’re going to mentor me, right? Thus, I am your pupil. And it doesn’t seem like I’m much younger than you, anyway.”

Thanatos blinked, not expecting the Prince to tell him such — and with such ease too.

“Forgive my boldness, but… you are still the prince. It is only respectful to address you as such”, Thanatos said.

“Oh”, the Prince wilted, like a flower under Thanatos’ touch, though he perked right back up. Optimism lit up his face, it was an endearing sight to see. “Alright, then. When do we start?”

“Right now”, Thanatos replied, as he felt a dying soul calling out to him somewhere on the surface world. “See you on the surface world?”

“Wait—” the Prince called out before Thanatos could even shift away. “I never— I mean, I can’t shift.”

That… made Thanatos’ eyebrows rise.

“You have no shifting ability?” Thanatos asked, and red colored the Prince’s face.

“You heard what my father said. My powers haven’t manifested, so”, the Prince gave a small shrug. “No, not yet, I suppose.”

Well, this was quite… a situation. They couldn’t take the long way through the River Styx every time they needed to go to the surface world and back. The dead could not wait — and on the surface world, the dead was abundant.

“Hold onto me then”, Thanatos said.

“Wait, what—?” it was the Prince’s turn to raise his eyebrows.

“Hold onto me”, Thanatos repeated. “I can expend some of my powers to take me with you. It’s faster this way.”

“O-oh”, the Prince blushed rather prettily, but he did as he was told. Hesitantly, he held onto Thanatos’ arm, above his soul-reaping gauntlet. “Like this?”

“Tighter”, Thanatos told him. “And don’t let go. I will not fetch you from the void between realms.  _ If _ you do survive the fall.”

Fear briefly flashed in the Prince’s eyes, but determination quickly set into his face. The Prince held tighter and gave Thanatos a nod.

“I’m ready.”

Thanatos focused his attention to the call he got earlier, pinpointing its approximate location, and dematerialized himself and the Prince in a flash of teal green light. It was as easy as breathing, despite the extra weight clinging onto him. One blink they were in the House of Hades, and the next they were up in the surface world.

The first thing that greeted them was the biting cold of the winter. Helios’ chariot was up high in the sky — it was daytime up in the surface world, it seemed. Barely noon, if Thanatos read the position of their shadows correct. It wasn’t as bright mid-winter, which suited Thanatos just fine, and he turned his attention to the frozen expanse of a snow-covered wheat field that spread before them.

“It’s cold!” Prince Zagreus said, shivering, despite the chlamys that he wore. “Now I understand why Mother made me wear this. It’s so cold up here!”

_ It’s not that bad _ , Thanatos wanted to say. He rather preferred wintertime compared to summertime, and the freezing air was much better than the midsummer sweltering heat. But then again, the Prince was allowed to have his own opinion.

“Is this the first time you experience winter?” Thanatos asked.

“It’s the first time I experience the surface world!” the Prince replied — excitedly, much to Thanatos’ surprise. “Is it always this cold up here?”

Thanatos was about to reply, when he felt another call of the dead, coming from another place this time. They had spent too long dawdling over nothing, it seemed.

“Come now, we can talk while we walk”, Thanatos said, and the Prince obeyed, bounding next to him with relentless energy.

“Whoa”, the Prince stared in amazement at the snow melting under his flame-feet, but he didn’t stop. “Everything is so white and grey and cold, it’s weird. And what is this white stuff?”

“It’s called snow”, Thanatos replied, as they headed toward a hut by the outcropping rocks. It was a simple hut, with a simple man living alone inside it. A farmer, paid to watch over the wheat field. His wife and their only son had passed away in a plague. Thanatos had taken the two of them himself, years ago.

The man himself was old, and he was dying from persistent coughs from the cold. He looked up when Thanatos and the Prince entered his humble abode, a thin trail of blood trickled down the corner of his lips. His wary eyes fell to the scythe on Thanatos’ back, and he sighed.

“You are here to take me, I presume?” the old man asked, before dissolving into a bout of coughs once again.

“I am”, Thanatos answered.

“Well… you can’t”, the man said. “You— you see, I live alone with my cat. I raised her since she was a little kitten. She can’t hunt, and if I die, she won’t be able to find her own food!”

Before Thanatos could deign any response to the old man’s blabbering, a soft meow came from underneath. A black tabby cat wound herself around Zagreus’ feet, no doubt drawn by the warmth of the Prince’s flame-feet. 

“Oh, hello, you”, Prince Zagreus cooed, and — before Thanatos could stop him — picked her up into his arms. “What a fat little thing you are. The old man took a good care of you, huh?”

“You needn’t worry about her”, Thanatos said to the old man. “A villager will throw her rocks for stealing his food tonight, and she will die from her injuries not long after.”

“Oh”, the old man and the Prince said at the same time. Thanatos glanced at the Prince briefly, before noticing that the feline had purred up a storm. The old man coughed once again, and more blood flecked his fist and bedding from the force of it. His time was near that Thanatos could feel the pull of his soul.

“Can’t we just take her now?” Prince Zagreus asked.

“We can’t. The Fates— they have written the end of her life. We can’t just change it”, Thanatos replied. “And besides, feline death is not my domain.”

“Not your department, huh?” the Prince said. “How do animals die, besides? Who carry their soul to the Underworld?”

“In my understanding, no one”, Thanatos replied. He never concerned himself with animal death before — they were just animals. “They just… die.”

“That’s sad”, the Prince said glumly, before pressing his forehead to the cat’s face, his eyes fluttering shut. The cat batted his flaming laurel, but made no attempt to escape the Prince’s grip. “I wish I can take you now. I wish your end isn’t so tragic and gruesome. You are so well-loved, that it’s a shame you can’t follow your master into the next life.”

As if answering the Prince’s prayer, something was happening, like a shift in the plane of existence. The Prince had to have felt it too, because he pulled the cat away from his face.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Thanatos watched with his own eyes as the cat’s soul exited its body, before fluttering around Prince Zagreus and nestling its ghostly head at the crook of his neck. The cat’s body went limp in the Prince’s hands, clearly dead.

“I— what— how—?” Thanatos’ eyes widened. He didn’t even touch the feline — how did she die?!

“Oh. Oh no”, Prince Zagreus said as realization dawned on both of them. “Oh, no no no no no. Help, Thanatos! How do I put her soul back?”

“You… can’t”, Thanatos couldn’t help the amusement that tinged his voice. “It seems that you have manifested your power, somehow.” He turned to the old man once again, who watched the whole thing with wide eyes. “It seems that your worry is resolved, then. Do you have something else that needs to be taken care of to make your passing easier?”

“N-no…” the old man answered, sighing. His breathing was labored, and it was clear that he was dying. However, the old man looked at Thanatos with fear in his eyes. “Will it be painful?”

This, Thanatos thought, was not an uncommon question asked by a dying mortal.

“Not as painful as sleep”, Thanatos answered, before offering his gauntleted hand toward the old man. “Come now. Your family awaits.”

The old man took Thanatos’ hand with a sad smile, and just like that, his soul left his body. The soul of his cat meowed and trotted in the air toward the old man’s soul. The two hugged, before their forms dissipated into thin air as they headed to the Underworld.

“Wow”, Prince Zagreus breathed out, and he carefully set the cat’s body next to her caretaker, before turning to Thanatos. “Are the deaths always this emotional?”

“Occasionally, yes”, Thanatos answered, and he couldn’t help but smile at the Prince. “Thank you, Prince. The old man wouldn’t pass as peacefully as he did had it not for your intervention.”

“To be completely honest with you, I have no idea what was happening”, the Prince said. “I mean… one moment I was holding her, and the next— It’s hard to describe.”

“My first time reaping soul was kind of like that too”, Thanatos returned, but before the Prince could ask him anything about it, he said, “Come now. We have another soul waiting for us.”

“Already?” the Prince asked. “Wow, you must be busy.”

“Very”, Thanatos replied, with a hint of humor.

The Prince then held his arm and the two of them shifted away from the now-empty hut.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me at my twitter ([sfw](https://twitter.com/arkadraws) | [nsfw](https://twitter.com/ArkaByNight))


End file.
